


code blue

by ACatWhoWrites



Series: A Prompt a Day in the Month of May [23]
Category: EXO (Band), K-pop
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Doctors & Physicians, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Microfic, Short One Shot, Soulmate-Identifying Timers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 12:45:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14749127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACatWhoWrites/pseuds/ACatWhoWrites
Summary: The ER isn't the best place to meet people, much less your soulmate.





	code blue

Everyone is given a counter at birth, a gift from the FILME Agency—Falling in Love Made Easy.

It's a soulmate counter, counting down the steps until its wearer meets their soulmate.

Minseok has been wearing his for many millions of steps when he graduates medical school. He wears his counter on the same wrist as his watch, but he doesn't look at it often, keeping it on the inside of his wrist rather than on top. It'll beep when it reaches zero. Stressing until then in pointless.

He has enough to stress about in the ER as it is. A traffic accident brings in a flood of injured students who were on their way home from a field trip when their bus struck a concrete median and crashed into the side of a bridge. Those in immediate danger come to Minseok's hospital; the lower-risk patients are triaged to other hospitals.

Minseok preps for surgery to stop a girl's arterial bleeding.

Once she's stable, he moves onto the next patient, a boy with a broken pelvis.

Then the driver, an older man with a history of elevated blood pressure and two open heart surgeries.

And so it goes. Ten steps between operating rooms, a shift of his weight during the procedure, nineteen steps to scrub up, thirty to the nurses' station...

Minseok is finally relieved by Joonmyun, a pediatric specialist, but it takes Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, resident nurses, physically herding him into the elevator for Minseok to make his way to the break room.

Someone is always bringing in food for some reason or another. Today, there are boxes of bagels and a sign on yellow paper cheerfully declaring that “ _CREAM CHEESE IS IN THE REFRIGERATOR!!_ ☺” There are leftover cookies from someone's birthday, as well.

With a plain bagel slathered in strawberry cream cheese and a sugar cookie on the side, Minseok sits for the first time in hours and feels his muscles relax and realign. His feet hurt; he hadn't noticed.

The TV is tuned to a music channel; after watching a couple groups perform, Minseok changes it to the news. Coverage is still live at the bus accident.

“ _...thirty-four children, the bus driver, and others involved in the resulting pile-up have been transported to surrounding hospitals. No word, yet, of their conditions, but we will keep you updated..._ ”

Footsteps pound up the stairs, and Chanyeol slams the door open. “Hyung!” He swallows a heavy breath. “Doctor Kim. Twenty-five-year-old with a head injury somehow walked here but isn't making sense, puked twice, and can't stand up on his own.”

Back to work.

Dozens of steps downstairs—the elevator is a slow luxury—with Chanyeol doing his best to clear the way. “A student and Kyungsoo are with him; we got him on a gurney, and he fainted. Blood pressure's dropping.”

Minseok spots a gurney against the wall of the hall; there are no rooms available, because of the accident. Kyungsoo is talking with the patient and holding his wrist for a pulse.

“His counter went off just as we laid him down,” the student mutters. “I really hope it's not one of us.”

“Not important right now, Jongin.” Kyungsoo meets Minseok's eyes and tells Jongin to go be helpful elsewhere. Jongin scratches beneath his own counter and follows a passing nurse calling for help. 

Minseok sprints the final distance, dodging a patient in a wheelchair and nurse reading a chart. “Back. Let me see.” Taking out the small flashlight he always carries, Minseok parts the man's eyelids. The pupils don't respond. It's only after years in the ER that he can hear through his heart pounding in his ears, and he hears his counter as he touches the man's wrist for a pulse.

_Beep... Beep... Beep..._

He can't feel anything.

**Author's Note:**

> This turned into one of those stories that I end up kind of liking the idea of and may flesh it out later.
> 
> I don't even play a doctor on TV, but I sometimes watch ER and read medical journals as a hobby. Keep an open heart, and Minseok will call a code right away, so they get a crash cart and kick-start his heart, get him stable, and then ship him up to radiology for an MRI or CT scan, where they will probably discover cerebral edema or intracerebral hemorrhaging. Layman's terms: nasty head trauma. Get that man on the table STAT.
> 
> I decided to try a prompt a day in May, not following any list. This came from **soulmates**.


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